“PEO­PLE COULD EAT ANY­WHERE IN THE CITY AND THEY CAME ALL THE WAY OUT HERE.”

If the peo­ple stuck at the wrong end of the hour-long queue that snakes through Home­town Bar-b-que ap­pear re­mark­ably chilled, it’s likely be­cause they’ve just had a shot of bourbon, com­pli­ments of the house. “I want peo­ple to know that I re­ally care about them be­ing here,” says Billy Dur­ney, a shed of a man whose arms are cov­ered in tat­toos and who was once a body­guard for celebri­ties (he de­clines to name names). Still, his love of tra­di­tional bar­be­cue – meat smoked for a day over a wood-flled pit – has seen him be­come a mi­nor celebrity in his own right, as the owner of Home­town, which squats in a des­o­late street on the south-western edge of Brook­lyn. “We care about the fact peo­ple could eat any­where in the city and they came all the way to the end of nowhere to eat our bar­be­cue. I’m al­ways hum­bled.” And come they do, lured by head­lines herald­ing Dur­ney’s as the fnest bar­be­cue in the city, which to Big Ap­ple lo­cals means the world. The beef brisket, sold by the half-pound, is caramelised to a shiny, ex­ter­nal black­ness with a suc­cu­lent and smokey core. It’s so per­fect that side dishes like Tex­as­style queso mac and cheese and corn­bread seem su­per­fuous. And on frst bite, even the cow that of­fered up its fesh would be im­pressed with the re­sults. With a gi­ant US fag painted on one wall and fairy lights hung from the rafters, Home­town Bar-b-que feels like a small piece of the South. In fact it’s an ode to the mul­ti­ple cul­tures that favoured Dur­ney’s up­bring­ing. “The beef rib and brisket are defnitely my ode to Texas bar­be­cue,” the 43-year-old tells GQ. “But other than that ev­ery­thing here is based on my grow­ing up in NYC. I grew up not far from a West In­dian and Ja­maican area so we serve jerk spare ribs. We have Korean sticky ribs cause I grew up near a Korean gro­cer. There’s lamb belly bánh mi. We do Viet­namese hot wings too. So it’s re­ally a multi-eth­nic jour­ney through bar­be­cue when you come here.” And a jour­ney worth the wait. home­town­bar­bque.com

WE CHAT TO THE MAN BE­HIND AMER­ICA’S MOST SOUGHT-OUT EAST COAST SMOKE­HOUSE, HOME­TOWN BAR-B-QUE.